LGBTI community continues to suffer from social stigma

September 1, 2017 /
Pahichan Reporter

Bipana Paneru/Kaski (Pahichan) September 1 – Raju Gurung who name has been changed as Riya Gurung went to Village Council last month wearing women’s dress. Some narrow-minded people tried to harassed her calling third gender and other abusive words.

Some people said that she cannot live in the society and some of them tried to expel her from society. She was even forced to strip off her clothe in public. She is just a representative case; there are other several such cases.

The social attitude towards gender and sexual minority remains unchanged. Despite social taboos and stigma, more and more people are disclosing their identity after the legal provision of issuing citizenship on the basis of gender identity.

However, members of this community are still facing a lot of difficulties to get the citizenship. World Health Organization has already made it clear that is not a disease. In Nepal, the number of this population is approximately half-million.

The population of this community constitutes 10 percent to total population. There is a need of wider collaboration to end the discrimination against this community.

There is not a uniform understanding among ordinary people about homosexual, transgender, inter-sex and bi-sexual people. Even the people who know about variance in this community address saying female, male and transgender. They, however, do not have proper knowledge that transgender have two categories: transgender woman and transgender man.
In this situation, it is not an easy task to inform society about their rights. Even the media and society did not have a positive attitude towards sexual and gender minority such as homosexual, transgender, inter-sex and bi-sexual people. National media had... Read more